


Storm Light

by Eireann



Series: Shadow [6]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M, Family, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-14 14:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7175126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eireann/pseuds/Eireann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda to 'Shadow of the Wolf'.</p><p>Twenty-five years have gone by on the Plains since Malcolm's departure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Efat

**Author's Note:**

> Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by CBS/Paramount. No infringement intended, no money made.
> 
> Author's Note: There will be more about the events following 'Shadow' in another story, but the idea for this story nagged at me till I got it down. As it is a deathfic, people who are upset by this type of story should not read it, but I hope that those who do read it will find more than sadness in it, as I did.

A storm is coming to the Plains.

This is nothing unexpected; the season for them is almost upon us, and the Tribe is well accustomed to them.  All the preparations have been made.  The tents are strong and stoutly lashed down; the horses in their lines are already hooded, to stop them trying to break their tethers in a panic when the thunder comes and injuring themselves by their efforts.  Shonn is already out with the herd, and Tirai the herd stallion knows and trusts him.  They will work together to safeguard the mares and foals until the storm passes.

We have seen many storms.  But still, there is some quality about the Plains this evening that is unlike any I can remember.  The sun is sinking in angry cloud, but it seems almost as if the very air is luminous.  Gusts of hot air push at the grass and die into nothing almost at once, like the panting breaths of a gigantic wolf, and the weight of expectation is so great that even the children walk timidly, frightened to break the silence.

I am walking between the tents at the edge of the village when a tug at my robe breaks into my reverie.  “ _Apth’_ Efat!”

I look down, startled, into a small, pretty face.  A fragile-looking girl, with long curling locks of black hair and eyes the colour of a dawn sky in winter framed startlingly by thick black lashes, but she is stronger than she looks.  Nevertheless the whole village cossets her, and not wholly for the sake of Tyanna her mother who waited so long and prayed so hard to be granted a child.  It had been universally accepted long since that Tyanna would never carry a babe to term, so that Aleen’s arrival eight years ago was looked on as a minor miracle, and the wonder has never entirely faded.

“What is it, child?” I prompt her gently.  She does not seem afraid, only puzzled.  She is always such an earnest youngster, but unless I am much mistaken she is enormously intelligent.

“What is wrong with _fei’_ Jessa?” she asks plaintively.  “She does not get out of bed any more.  Is she tired?”

I sigh inwardly.  Usually we deal straightforwardly with such things, but it had been as much due to Jessa’s skills as a healer as to the benevolence of the Gods that Tyanna had finally achieved motherhood; and the two women had cared for the tiny child through its first perilous months of life with a ferocity that dared the Old One Herself to snatch it away again.  All the children of the tribe have many fathers, but truly Aleen has two mothers.  And now she is about to lose one of them.

“Very tired, Aleen,” I answer kindly.  I could answer, _Tired of waiting_ , but that is true in only one sense, and would be unworthy of her. 

Almost without will my right hand moves to my left shoulder.  In winter the scar still aches, and as the years advance it grows worse, but I still have most of the use of my arm, and above all my life, because of Jessa’s skills.  Few of the warriors in the village owe nothing to her care, and a generation of babes have come into the world under her supervision.  It will be a different place, and a strange one, in which she no longer lives and breathes.

Aleen considers this.  “Could not _fei’_ Romi give her medicine?” she asks.

“The Healers have medicines to cure many things, Small One, but not tiredness like _fei’_ Jessa’s.  There is only one cure for that.”

I watch her think the thing through.  I have said that she is an intelligent child.  Nevertheless she is too proud to let me see the moment when she realises the truth; instead she turns her head and looks out across the Plain, into the far distance mottled with storm-cloud shadows and the sun’s angry red light.

“A rider is coming,” she says.

The hair shifts on the back of my neck as I follow her gaze.  She has the sight of a falcon, and she is right: there is a man, only a shape as yet, riding easily out of the turmoil in the west.

He is much too far away for me to perceive any detail of his face.  At first I think, with a shudder of awed apprehension, that he is riding a horse of fire, but after a moment I realise that it is only that the white horse he rides is reflecting the storm light.

It has been a long time.  I would not have said that I could know him again merely by the set of his shoulders, not at this distance, but they wake a memory in my mind that goes back twenty-five years.  That horse, however, was grey and white, and the ugliest brute ever foaled, in the estimation of many.  I know that when this rider comes up close I will see a grey cloak with white tribe-patterns spilling across the moving white haunches.

It is the custom among the People for a child to be delivered from its mother’s belly on to the hide of the last King Horse.  This man was birthed on to a hide that was patched grey and white, and he continued to sleep on it until he left.  Since then, it has been on his mother’s bed, and doubtless it is there now, worn and shabby and infinitely precious.

He has been away for almost three years.  He wanted to see the Great Battlefield, and said that afterwards he might go to see the ocean of which so many Tales tell, so that he might give it life over the winter fireside.  And his mother let him go with her blessing.

I know that Romi among others had much to say on that subject; Jessa was starting to grow frail even then.  But Malih only ever heeded the words of two people, and neither of them said him nay.  (I thought Atreh at least would have had the sense to speak, but no, he would but say that one does not keep a wolf in a cage and expect him to love captivity.)  I myself pointed out the unwisdom of his going;  Malih heard me out with what I can only describe as polite forbearance, and then went ahead and did exactly what he had intended to do all along. 

He was always an obedient child, right up till the moment he decided not to be.  _Vhé!_   I can imagine where he got that from.

It would have served him right if his mother had crossed the Bridge before his return.  Nevertheless it was not a thing any of us truly wished on him, however wilful and undutiful we thought him when he left, so I make the gesture of gratitude to the God that he is to escape the due punishment for his intransigence, ignoring the stab of vexation at my own softness and folly.

“Is it – is it _apth’Malih?_ ”  Aleen’s question breaks into my thoughts.  She is still gazing westward, her hand shading her eyes.  She was only five when he left, and for three days she would take neither food nor water, despite his promises that he would return.  For months after she spent hours each day gazing in the direction in which he had gone, and the fading of her expectation after that was painful to see.  Over the years since then she has matured into acceptance, but still one has known that hope was still there, a steady flame abiding in his word that he would come back to her.

I am growing old and foolish before my time.  Maybe the smoke from one of the cooking-fires has got into my eyes, that they sting suddenly. 

“Yes, Aleen.  It is _apth’_ Malih.  I am sure he would be pleased to have you the first to greet him.”

She needs no other bidding.  Her legs that not so long ago were chubby and unsteady are growing long, like the other bones of her body as she fines down into the budding beauty she will become.  They carry her over the turf in a headlong flight to joy.

He puts his heels to his horse to come to her.  If it were almost any other horse I would draw in breath for fear of the pounding legs, but on Malih’s fifteenth naming-day riders from Rakhor’s village rode into the camp leading a mare nursing a spindly-legged smoke-grey colt foal.  When they left again, a few weeks later, they took only the mare.  The foal was haltered alongside Jessa’s tent, and on any night thereafter when it did not rain Malih slept in the straw alongside it.

Many expected Shonn to have much to say on the topic, he being the Horsemaster (even though any man with eyes could see the promise in the youngster – Rakhor’s own Horsemaster must have seen it go with more than a pang).  But whatever he thought, he kept his counsel.  Even when Malih refused to have the growing colt gelded, there was no comment from that quarter, though doubtless Tirai will have much to say on the subject when he scents a strange stallion in the camp.

_Shai_ , they called the foal, which means ‘Spear’, and within two years he was the colour of lightning and near as fast.  But for all his strength and speed, he is careful with small things.  So I am not surprised when almost at the last moment he jinks without breaking stride, and the rider bends from his back to catch at two small arms yearningly uplifted.

“Foolishness,” I mutter, but more from habit than anything else.  Aleen is safely held, and winds herself to clasp at a strong body that holds her close.

It is only a few more moments before Shai is drawn up to a trampling halt beside me; no man would gallop his horse through the village, endangering the young and old taken unawares.

“Efat!  It is good to see you again!”

His voice is deeper.  He has finished growing into his manhood, which sits confidently on him. 

“You also, Malih,” I return, putting up a hand to catch at Shai’s bridle before his rider can urge him forward; the great white head tosses briefly but then submits to my touch.  I had forgotten how beautiful he is, like the white waves that the Teller of Tales speaks of that rush in from the ocean when the wind is high.  “I am glad you are returned safely.  It is time and past time.”

The sparkle of homecoming dies out of his face, and his eyes narrow.  Over the last few years I have forgotten, a little, how piercing they can be.  They are the colour of the clouds piling in the west, and once again a small shiver of apprehension walks down my spine.  Too many tales, even now, cling about the man whose spirit surely visited Jessa’s body and gave life to the babe within, and every year they multiply.

“My mother?”

For no reason at all I look out towards the west again.  The sun has dropped a little lower, and now only angled rays of light find rents in the clouds here and there.  Perhaps it is only my imagination that supplies the first and softest mutter of thunder, passing through the ground underfoot rather than the air.

“Waiting.”  It is not what I had meant to say, but I realise that it is the truth nevertheless.  The strange thing is that I am not even sure what I mean by it.

He lets Aleen slide safely to the ground, though she holds on to his leg as though fearing that if she looses him he will turn around and ride away again for another three years.  Mindful of her nearness, he follows her down, alighting lightly on the turf so that we are now eye to eye, and I can see him more clearly.

He was done growing by the time he left, and he is still short in height for one of the People, but his shoulders have filled out.  Doubtless to honour his homecoming, he is wearing his gold: the worn leather wristband with the inset panel that was his soul-sire’s, and – this is new – a slender fillet of finely worked gold nestling among his dark curls.  It seems that he has walked in strange paths since he left us, for the open collar of his shirt shows swirls of black tattooing on his body, and across the _qeh_ on one high cheekbone the old, familiar mark stands out: /\\_/\\.

It is not his Tribe Mark.  He was Marked for the Falcon, the small, swift killer of the skies.  I am not at all sure what Mahoob will have to say about a man taking to himself a Mark that is not his own, but then I am completely sure that whatever it is, Malih will not care.

“I have kept her waiting long enough,” he says shortly, and we begin the walk to Jessa’s tent.  The camp is always laid out in the same pattern, wherever it is set up, so he needs no direction.  Shai follows behind, unbidden, his rein thrown carelessly over his neck; Aleen trots alongside, still holding on to a fold of the runaway’s shirt to prevent him escaping.

There are always people coming and going about the village, and several encounter us and greet him with pleasure, but always he puts them off with quiet words, saying his tale will be fitter for the _acha-we_ and the ears of all.  As we pass Tyanna’s tent, however, she emerges from it without warning, and he pauses.  Across a suddenly charged space of air messages pass, and I remember the surprise it caused when Tyanna invited him into her tent when he was hardly into manhood; there were maids of his own age with whom his first experience would have been more usual.  Nevertheless, what passes between a man and a woman in her own tent is no business of any but themselves, unless they choose to make it otherwise.  Motherhood has brought her fulfilment, and her worn thinness has softened into contented curves, defying her age; men whom she invites these days think themselves fortunate.

Her eyes rest briefly on Aleen, holding on to his shirt, and a faint, soft smile touches her mouth, but without words she walks on about whatever business hailed her forth, and we too walk on.

“Has much changed?” he asks at last.

“We have all grown older,” I answer with a little dry humour.  Then I give him the news, as best I can, of all that has befallen since he left: mostly births (the Goddess has been generous this year, and the Old One only took one babe, that was born misshapen), and two deaths, both expected and peaceful.  The Turn Year took place the summer before he left, and the young women who came to live among us have settled in very well and are happy and contented.  Those who left send loving messages by the traders, so we are assured of their well-being.  The years pass in their accustomed cycle, and the Tribe follows the King Horse and the grazing, and the sun rises and sets ... naught changes down the years, across the Plains.

I have often wondered if, being who he was, he found it a little dull.

But almost before I am done speaking, we are at Jessa’s tent.  I see his gaze go to the mark newly painted on the door-flap facing the setting sun, and I am very sure I know who set it there.  With what pain, I can only imagine.

“Aleen, _apth_ ’Malih wishes to greet his family, and you are old enough now to know the rules.  Unless you are asked, you do not enter.”

She looks up at him, plainly hoping for an invitation.  But he is staring at the mark, and I see him swallow.

“Go to your mother, Aleen,” I add more gently.  “There will be time enough later.”

Time enough for what, I do not say, but she is a biddable child in the main.  Not without many a backward look, she goes in search of Tyanna.  Doubtless there will be much talk in that tent this eve, though I have my doubts that her mother will be called upon to contribute much to it beyond the required nods; Aleen has had three years of waiting, and at a guess will find enough of wonder merely to see him come home.

Being of the priest-kind, I am entitled to enter unbidden.  But there are times when entitlement is not enough.

I turn away.  There are preparations I have to make.

The waiting is almost over.


	2. Atreh

“Then if you will not eat, at least you should drink.”

She still has strength enough to scowl at me.  She knows very well that it is not water I am offering her, but wine with strengthening herbs mixed into it.  I have heard all too often poor Romi trying to coax or scold her mother into drinking the very same potion, and seldom with success. 

They understand each other very well, those two.

“Water,” she says clearly.  The word she actually uses is ‘ _Wor-ta’_ , but I know what she wants, and also that there is no use whatsoever in arguing.  Silently I fill a horn cup from the waterbag set by, and Romi helps me to lift her so that she can drink easily.  Though indeed it is little effort, for almost imperceptibly over the past half-year the flesh has slipped quietly away from her bones, leaving her so slender that it almost seems that a careless touch would break her.

Swallowing is an effort for her.  She drinks three mouthfuls to please me and another to stop Romi from glaring at her.  After that we lay her back down on the furs and make her comfortable again.

She is not in any pain; Romi is her mother’s daughter, and having learned from her for a little over twenty years has more than enough skills for that.  She is simply tired, and every day she sleeps a little more.  Soon – very soon now – she will go to sleep for the last time, and run light-footed and joyous across the Bridge into Malcolm’s arms at last, young again forever in the Eternal Grazing Lands.

I have borrowed her for twenty-five years.  It is almost time for me to hand her back, ungrudging.

We have always dealt honestly with one another.  As soon as she knew what ailed her, she told me herself, as one who had a right to know.  So we could look the thing in the face and deal with it, and so we have done, bearing what must be borne.

I have kept the faith.  I think he will not hold me forsworn, when we meet again.

Romi places a hoarded fir-cone carefully on the fire, and its aromatic sweetness drifts out into the tent.  Jessa’s eyes open, and she smiles; the smell has always reminded her of _him._ Romi smiles valiantly back.  She never knew Malcolm of course, but she has him by heart, and she too knows that it is almost time.

The dawn air this morning smelled of the storm coming, though it was a beautiful day.  I carried Jessa out to see it, and the gods even sent a skylark, spiralling up into the bright morning air.  She smiled so marvellously to hear it that I was glad Romi was still sleeping; there are some joys that are too close to grief to be borne by the young, and soon she will be able to let fall the tears that she has kept back all this time.

Jessa too is one of the People.  She knew exactly why I had carried her outside.  She smiled again, one she keeps only for me, and touched my face gently.

We have gone about the day as though it was just another day, though in Romi’s comings and goings I have heard the break in step before she enters that tells me she is scanning the horizon.  Jessa has accepted her loss, but Romi has not.  If Malih returns too late – as it seems now that he will – there will be a reckoning between those two.  Murmurings I have heard break off on my return suggest that Jessa knows this also, and has tried to avert it.  That she knows her efforts wasted does not even touch the love she bears her daughter.  Truly, if women bore Tribe Marks, Romi’s would be the Bear; she is slow to rouse, but terrifying in defence of those she loves, and she has never forgiven Malih for leaving, even with the promise of return.  Often I see Briai’s great strength in her, as well as her mother’s great wisdom.  If the Great Mother is kind, she will bear strong sons for the tribe when her time comes....

Only in one respect was the day different from those that had preceded it.  With the sun past its zenith, and the storm clouds starting to gather in the west, I collected a pot of _bol_ juice from the _kiwa-we_ and painted the Wolf Mark on the tent flap.  I did not fully know why I did this; surely he would know where she was waiting for him, and needed no summons.  As a welcome, maybe.

Doubtless those who saw it understood.  The People make no parade about dying; it is accepted, though Romi and I feel the village’s sympathy and sorrow.  Those came who needed to, and Romi dealt with their little ills.  They spoke to me, and to Jessa, and when she was awake she answered them and when she was not they nodded and left.

It is time for the evening meal.  Tyanna brings this for us from the _kiwa-we_.  She brings three bowls, though it is the last time she will need to, and one will be left untouched; Jessa has not eaten meat for days.

There is no stew in Jessa’s bowl, however, only a handful of tiny sweet red _irch_ berries.  These are hard to find, growing as the plant does in crevices where birds have difficulty in seeing the buds, which they like to eat, though the bright berries peep out temptingly when they are ripe.  At a guess, the children have been out seeking them all afternoon.  Much labour has gone into finding the seventeen that sit proudly on the polished wood.

Too many lost battles have taught Romi that her mother will not eat before her children are satisfied.  The maid picks up her own bowl with a look of mingled resignation and determination; once it is empty, every last one of those berries will be eaten, or she will know the reason.

The stew is hot, and probably tastes good.  I set down my own bowl when I have finished, and prepare to be the voice of moderation in the battle of wills to follow.

Romi has hardly set her hand to the bowl of berries, however, when we hear Efat’s voice outside.  This in itself would cause no surprise, but the soft thud of hooves so close to the tent is unusual.  The riding horses are already picketed and hooded for the night to come, so this must be some visitor.

Unless....

Jessa is suddenly completely wide awake, like a little owl staring from its burrow.  Her fingers clench in the furs, and I set my hand gently on them, praying to the God that she will not be disappointed.


	3. Romi

It is he.

My brother: my older brother on whom we have not set eyes for almost three years, and whom I had begun to fear dead in some distant land.

He is the same and yet different.  I am still taller than he, but he never needed height to make him formidable.  Now, he has presence, assurance.  It shows in the way he moves, with the liquid grace of a wolf; and as he comes to rest just inside the tent flap, his head high, one would not be entirely surprised if he were to howl.

But the pose is held only for the merest instant, a pause to let him orient himself.  Next moment he is hurrying forward, plunging into the arms that reach for him; and for all my pain and anger at him, I cannot be other than glad for Mother’s gladness as well as – a little – for my own.

He is shocked.  I saw it in his face.  We who have been here all this time have seen it happen gradually; he has been absent for three years, and the change cannot be other than shocking.  Nevertheless when he straightens up a little he smiles at her with an unchanged tenderness. 

“Still the same Mother Wolf,” he says gently, pushing back a strand of white hair that has fallen askew across her face.  “Still the heart of the den for the cubs to return to.” 

Words are hard for her now, but there is no need of words for the joy that is shining in her face.  She is lying propped up on furs, that being the position that makes it easiest for her to breathe; it takes only a little of her waning strength to reach up to stroke his cheeks and his hair.  He catches gently at her wrist to support it as her fingers flutter teasingly over the mark painted on his cheekbone, and they share a private smile.

The whole village knows that a storm is coming.  Now for the first time we hear the mutter of it in the distance.

Malih lifts his head and meets the eyes of the only father he has ever known or called by that name; all the village are aware that neither Atreh’s spirit nor that of any other man in the village gave him life.  Nonetheless, he has always treated Atreh with as much love and respect as though they truly had shared the same spirit.

“I have seen the Wall, _apth’Bhai_.” His voice is quiet and low, the salutation he chooses an affectionate comedy of terms though there is a note in it that seems to make the ground quiver.  “It stands three times the height of a man and will stand for fifty times fifty years.  It runs from the Bay of Knives in the east to the Emerald Sea in the west, and in it there is no gate or door.  No man will pass through it, to come or to go, though he be the lord of fifty times fifty times fifty warriors."

The Wall.

Travellers have spoken of it, but none of the Tribe have set eyes on it.  Rumour has spoken of its size, but rumour has many tongues.

Something in Atreh has always been still, listening.  I have never known this until now, when I see the tension go out of him in the faintest shudder of relief.  The son of his heart, if not of his spirit, has given him a gift beyond measure.

And yet – the Wall!  So tall and strong!  I try to picture it, but there are no walls on the Plains.  It would be an affront to the Wind Horses who we see galloping through the long grasses, the spirits of all the King Horses down the years running free forever across the lands they loved.  My mind creates the image of stones piled upon stones, but I know from Malih’s tone that nothing my imagination can furnish will be even close to the reality of what he has seen.

“It has never seemed to me possible that one defeat could halt them,” my soul-sire says quietly.  “Why then should they build such a wall, rather than build another army and come to take their revenge?”

A small half-smile creases my brother’s mouth.  “Traders still come and go on the Emerald Sea, despite the ban.  They tell that the captain of the army the People defeated was the only son of the King of the Stone Tent People, and that his sire fell into madness on his loss, and commanded that the Wall be built so that no other good men should be wasted on a fool’s errand to conquer ‘worthless barbarians and their poverty-stricken lands’.”

A ghost of a laugh breaks from our mother.  “ _He_ did not deem us worthless,” she whispers, pride shining in her thin face as though it is lit from within.  As if in response to her words, another and louder growl of thunder comes, apposite enough to send a prickle of fear down my back.  _The Wolf is coming_.

Malih runs a gentle finger down her cheek.  “No-one could ever deem you worthless, _fei’Thai_.”  He draws in breath.  “But I could not live in peace till I knew _he_ had not died for nothing.”

The first few drops of rain splatter down on the canvas above us: hard, heavy drops.  Then there is an ominous silence.  In my mind’s eye I can see the clouds piling up outside, massing to murder the last of the daylight so that the flash of Bracu’s spears will rule the world.

I have a sudden sense of time pressing us hard.  I pick up the bowl of berries and thrust it at Malih.  “She will eat them for you, maybe,” I say, with a desperate attempt at a jest. 

The touch of her hand against my arm is almost enough to undo me.  “I will eat them for _both_ of my beloved children.”

It is an effort.  I know it is an enormous effort for her.  But we hand her the berries one by one, taking turns, and she eats them, slowly but with utter determination.

I think we are both wondering who should give her the last, when Atreh leans forward and picks it up.  He places it gently in her mouth, way-food for her journey across the Bridge.

The look she gives him in return makes me feel like an intruder.  I suspect that Malih feels the same, for he makes a business of running a finger around the now empty bowl, as though checking for flaws in the polish.

The lifting of the tent-flap makes us all startle, but it is only Bihiv of course.  He of all men would wish to be present, and he is bearing the SoulSinger – doubtless _apth’_ Efat has carried out the due preparations to summon the spirits of the tribe to welcome one of their own.  Without words our uncle settles down with the burnished metal dome between his knees and begins sounding the tongues softly with the ancient piece of bone that legend says was carved from the jawbone of the First Horse; the quiet, strangely resonant notes drift through the tent, a counterpoint to the low drumming of the approaching rain.  He does not look up, simply sits concentrating with all his being on each note, so that his soul sings with it.

The rain reaches us, and this time it does not stop.  Almost before any of us have time to draw breath it goes from the first splatter of drops to a steady, furious pummelling on the canvas. 

The light is being sucked out of the world.  Within moments the fire-glow that before had added hardly anything to the evening sunlight plucks us all out of darkness.

Then Bracu’s Wolf speaks.  From the tremendous bellow of it the God must be directly over us.  The white flash of His spear splits the world asunder, and the ground shakes from the impact of it.

A blast of air flings the tent flap open.  Our mother’s eyes open wide, with a look of such joy that it is impossible not to believe she sees the one for whom she has waited so long.

Maybe my spirit-sire sees him too, for he lifts a hand in greeting – the one hand that is not clasping hers.  I do not look at his face; my own grief is enough to bear.  Beside him, Malih turns to look towards the wildly fluttering tent-flap.  Only the God knows what he sees, or thinks he does.

When at last the thunder dies away, there is a new silence in the tent.  Bihiv still strikes gently at the SoulSinger, but now there is a lengthening pause between each note, and the sounds are softer and softer, footfalls dying away into distance.  Before the next great growl from above rends the heavens, they have fallen into the silence.

The storm goes on.  It lasts all night, while we sit and talk quietly of her, and hold one another in our grief.  Come the morning and we will build the pyre, and when nothing remains but bone and ash, the priests will pound it into dust so that her body will be borne away by the Plains winds to join those of the ancestors.  All of her that mattered is gone, and I weep into my spirit-sire’s breast even as he draws the picture for us of how she is now safe forever in the arms of her Beloved.

Malih sits dry-eyed and silent, stroking his mother’s hair.  Bihiv sets aside the SoulSinger and draws out his harp.  He will not speak again until the last of his sibling’s remains have blown away; after having summoned the spirits he is of their company until the last trace of their presence departs with the windblown ashes, but still his harp can give him utterance, and in between the roars of the Wolf I hear it mourning.

Dawn breaks at last through the diminishing rumbles of the storm.  The noise grows slowly less as the God rides away across the Plain.  The intervals between flashes grow longer, and the distant growls fainter, until at last they are lost among the far-off hills.

At last, as the first glow of morning touches the tent-wall, I know that I must spread the word.  Though I have no doubt at all that every soul in the village knows what has taken place, and who returned at last to fetch the one who waited for him so long and faithfully.

I have sat still so long that my knees give way as I try to rise.  Malih steadies me, and is behind me as I duck out through the tent-flap, startling Shai who has waited there all night.

The last rags of Bracu’s cloak are floating after him towards the north.  In the east the sun is breaking through shreds of amber cloud, and every blade of grass is glittering with rain-jewels in the level light.  The air smells fresh and clean, as though the world has sprung new from the God’s hand just the moment before I stepped outside.

It is the same world, but a different one.  It is the one in which we must all go on from this day forward; and all I can think is that it is utterly unjust that it should still be so beautiful.  Fresh tears blur my vision.  Doubtless the Eternal Grazing Lands are wonderful beyond the telling, but this was her home, and she will never return.

A scatter of bright notes startles me.  High overhead the first skylark is rising, the bird that Mother loved above all others.

“Look.”  Malih points.  “She is not alone.”

I push the tears from my eyes, blinking to see where he is pointing.  A second skylark is surging aloft.  Life thrills through its small body.

We watch until they are too high to see.  Only their voices still tumble down out of the blue, united and indistinguishable one from the other.

They have gone from our sight, but the joy of their song remains.

And the song will go on forever.

 

**The End.**

 


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